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Seasons of Change: Busking England
Tom Kitching is one of England’s leading traditional fiddle players.
He has worked as a solo performer, band member, dance caller, violin teacher, and street busker. That last element – the busking – was an afterthought, something to be phased out as he built a career in music.
But the busking bug wouldn’t go away. Beyond the music and the collecting hat, perhaps fiddling through the streets of England could be a key to finding out who the English really are, how they view themselves and how they deal with change. Is there anything that ties together people across England’s many cultural divides, from neat Cotswold villages hugging village greens to former mining villages huddled beside abandoned pits, from multicultural city to Anglo-Saxon market town?
Armed with a violin, a Northern sensibility and a love of life in all its troubling richness, Tom took an 18-month journey through England to find out.
This isn’t really a book about busking, though. It’s about people, place, and that elusive beast – Englishness. On Tom’s street-level odyssey, the lines between friend and stranger blur, informality reigns, and chance encounters make a mockery of careful planning.
As the seasons change and the tally of busking towns grows, the complex mosaic called England confronts its fly-on-the-wall observer with the challenge – define me if you dare.
He has worked as a solo performer, band member, dance caller, violin teacher, and street busker. That last element – the busking – was an afterthought, something to be phased out as he built a career in music.
But the busking bug wouldn’t go away. Beyond the music and the collecting hat, perhaps fiddling through the streets of England could be a key to finding out who the English really are, how they view themselves and how they deal with change. Is there anything that ties together people across England’s many cultural divides, from neat Cotswold villages hugging village greens to former mining villages huddled beside abandoned pits, from multicultural city to Anglo-Saxon market town?
Armed with a violin, a Northern sensibility and a love of life in all its troubling richness, Tom took an 18-month journey through England to find out.
This isn’t really a book about busking, though. It’s about people, place, and that elusive beast – Englishness. On Tom’s street-level odyssey, the lines between friend and stranger blur, informality reigns, and chance encounters make a mockery of careful planning.
As the seasons change and the tally of busking towns grows, the complex mosaic called England confronts its fly-on-the-wall observer with the challenge – define me if you dare.
331 pages, Paperback
Published February 1, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
April 30, 2020
An exploration of the character of the English from the point of view of a bloke standing on the street playing his fiddle. The book is actually called Seasons Of Change and there is an accompanying CD which is well worth picking up too.
It's not about busking, it's about the people he meets, their lives and their stories, their involvement in the world around them, from Berwick to Penzance. It's a more real vision of England than most commentators would give you, and despite the rough and neglected areas he often ends up exploring - and despite some of the rough and neglected characters he meets - there is a sense of celebration and hope.
An excellent read.
It's not about busking, it's about the people he meets, their lives and their stories, their involvement in the world around them, from Berwick to Penzance. It's a more real vision of England than most commentators would give you, and despite the rough and neglected areas he often ends up exploring - and despite some of the rough and neglected characters he meets - there is a sense of celebration and hope.
An excellent read.
December 3, 2020
For starters this book has been incorectly titled. It's actually called "Seasons of Change" which calls into question if other reviewers on Goodreads.com have actually read the book, or have simply copied and pasted text from elsewhere.
Seasons of Change. Busking England. Tom Kitching
Book and CD . April 2020
English folk fiddler, Tom Kitching of the band Pilgrims Way, has published his first book, Seasons of Change. It’s an engaging and well written account of his Busking England project resulting from 18 months visiting English towns, cities and villages simply to busk and write an account of his experiences. As such it must be completely unique, in that it gives a comprehensive picture of modern English town and community life from a very unusual perspective.
Tom takes his fiddle, case and collecting hat to a random town or village, sets up in the high street or other suitable pitch and busks. The size of the place or its importance in our landscape, culture or economy is not relevant to its inclusion in the project, but the sheer diversity of the locations visited adds immensely to the appeal of the book. He starts the account in the far North in Berwick Upon Tweed, which can’t make up its mind if it is in England or Scotland and finishes up in Hull, visiting London, Cheltenham, Brighton, Dudley, Sheffield, Runcorn, Cromer, Easington, Whitehaven - an astonishing total over 40 towns and cities visited in the course of the project. His objective was to make enough money from busking to cover his travel, accommodation and sustenance costs for the duration of his stay. After each visit he quickly wrote down his experiences and published them on-line as a web-blog.
Thus there is certain freshness in all his writing. The web blog attracted a lot of attention through social media from his many friends and connections in the folk world. Feedback from readers encouraged Tom to turn the blog into a proper book. With support from the Arts Council, The English Folk Dance and Song Society, (specifically the Alan James Creative Bursary Fund for the CD recording), Tom has been able to publish the book and the accompanying CD. The recording is a reference to some of tunes he played whilst busking and has been released at the same time as the book.The book is a modern masterpiece of observational writing. In his role as a street busker Tom was in a unique position to stimulate random responses from the passers-by. Some are welcome, some not so much, but he makes enough money in contributions to get by, even if sometimes he has to compromise a little on comfort. His time in Cornwall being one such example, where he had no option but to sleep in his car overnight.
He takes time to explore each town, noting the many unique, unusual, sometimes funny, sometimes downright weird, sad or disturbing sights events and inhabitants. Everywhere he visits is described with reference to the history and character of the area. The way he recounts his experiences is both interesting and entertaining and many will raise a smile as they turn the pages. His comments are only judgemental in that whenever he perceives unfairness or injustice this is commented upon very clearly revealing his natural social conscience.
Tom interacts with the people he meets, from the ordinary man, woman, child or dog in the street, and also the homeless, the beggars, those who are down on their luck. He often finds it’s those who have the least that are most generous in making contributions to his busking fund. These contributions are not always monetary either and are an endless source of wonder to him, especially the occurrence of the occasional sausage roll in the collecting hat. Overall the majority of the people that he meets have redeeming features and many open up to him with tales of their life, which is perhaps one of the unexpected and most interesting of outcomes.
There are other well-known published accounts of life from an outsider‘s point of view, but this book is so very up-to-date having been compiled just as the unfortunate Brexit saga unfolded , and only a short while before the current COVID-19 crisis. Tom has commented subsequently that he may have unknowingly documented a lost way of life in England. Some of it good, some of it truly inexcusable.I urge you to buy the book & the CD direct from Tom’s website. I can almost guarantee that you will read the book avidly from cover to cover. Perhaps you won’t learn a great deal that you think you didn’t already know, but the special quality of this book comes from the ability of the author to tease out the unexpected, the bizarre, the strange, the everyday seemingly mundane events in English towns and cities which we normally do not stop and take any notice of, but are part of our lives, or were until the coronavirus crisis hit us.
There is real warmth in Tom’s writing. For instance, he sees the goodness in the hearts of people of Bradford, who with their young families spontaneously begin dancing in the street to his tunes, while in the next paragraph he recounts the pathetic struggle of homeless people dragging themselves from one shop doorway to another to avoid the attention of the police.
The accompanying 11 track CD of the same title as the book is characterised by Tom’s energetic & lively fiddle playing. It’s the kind of English dance music he so enjoys playing while busking, or with his ceilidh bands. He is accompanied by Marit Falt on Nordic mandola and cittern and also by Jude Rees on English Border Bagpipes. The album is infectiously foot tapping, being the kind of music that can grab the attention of those passing by in the street and includes a selection of traditional tunes as well as some written by Tom and other collaborators. It was recorded in an old Methodist chapel in the Peak District, which gives it a very distinctive bright and live feel.
Graham Smout
Book: Seasons of Change. Busking England .Tom Kitching. Scratching Shed Publishing Ltd. £13.99 +p&p
CD: Seasons of Change.Tom Kitching. Taking Cat Recordings £12.00 + p&p
Available at: www.tomkitching.co.uk
Seasons of Change. Busking England. Tom Kitching
Book and CD . April 2020
English folk fiddler, Tom Kitching of the band Pilgrims Way, has published his first book, Seasons of Change. It’s an engaging and well written account of his Busking England project resulting from 18 months visiting English towns, cities and villages simply to busk and write an account of his experiences. As such it must be completely unique, in that it gives a comprehensive picture of modern English town and community life from a very unusual perspective.
Tom takes his fiddle, case and collecting hat to a random town or village, sets up in the high street or other suitable pitch and busks. The size of the place or its importance in our landscape, culture or economy is not relevant to its inclusion in the project, but the sheer diversity of the locations visited adds immensely to the appeal of the book. He starts the account in the far North in Berwick Upon Tweed, which can’t make up its mind if it is in England or Scotland and finishes up in Hull, visiting London, Cheltenham, Brighton, Dudley, Sheffield, Runcorn, Cromer, Easington, Whitehaven - an astonishing total over 40 towns and cities visited in the course of the project. His objective was to make enough money from busking to cover his travel, accommodation and sustenance costs for the duration of his stay. After each visit he quickly wrote down his experiences and published them on-line as a web-blog.
Thus there is certain freshness in all his writing. The web blog attracted a lot of attention through social media from his many friends and connections in the folk world. Feedback from readers encouraged Tom to turn the blog into a proper book. With support from the Arts Council, The English Folk Dance and Song Society, (specifically the Alan James Creative Bursary Fund for the CD recording), Tom has been able to publish the book and the accompanying CD. The recording is a reference to some of tunes he played whilst busking and has been released at the same time as the book.The book is a modern masterpiece of observational writing. In his role as a street busker Tom was in a unique position to stimulate random responses from the passers-by. Some are welcome, some not so much, but he makes enough money in contributions to get by, even if sometimes he has to compromise a little on comfort. His time in Cornwall being one such example, where he had no option but to sleep in his car overnight.
He takes time to explore each town, noting the many unique, unusual, sometimes funny, sometimes downright weird, sad or disturbing sights events and inhabitants. Everywhere he visits is described with reference to the history and character of the area. The way he recounts his experiences is both interesting and entertaining and many will raise a smile as they turn the pages. His comments are only judgemental in that whenever he perceives unfairness or injustice this is commented upon very clearly revealing his natural social conscience.
Tom interacts with the people he meets, from the ordinary man, woman, child or dog in the street, and also the homeless, the beggars, those who are down on their luck. He often finds it’s those who have the least that are most generous in making contributions to his busking fund. These contributions are not always monetary either and are an endless source of wonder to him, especially the occurrence of the occasional sausage roll in the collecting hat. Overall the majority of the people that he meets have redeeming features and many open up to him with tales of their life, which is perhaps one of the unexpected and most interesting of outcomes.
There are other well-known published accounts of life from an outsider‘s point of view, but this book is so very up-to-date having been compiled just as the unfortunate Brexit saga unfolded , and only a short while before the current COVID-19 crisis. Tom has commented subsequently that he may have unknowingly documented a lost way of life in England. Some of it good, some of it truly inexcusable.I urge you to buy the book & the CD direct from Tom’s website. I can almost guarantee that you will read the book avidly from cover to cover. Perhaps you won’t learn a great deal that you think you didn’t already know, but the special quality of this book comes from the ability of the author to tease out the unexpected, the bizarre, the strange, the everyday seemingly mundane events in English towns and cities which we normally do not stop and take any notice of, but are part of our lives, or were until the coronavirus crisis hit us.
There is real warmth in Tom’s writing. For instance, he sees the goodness in the hearts of people of Bradford, who with their young families spontaneously begin dancing in the street to his tunes, while in the next paragraph he recounts the pathetic struggle of homeless people dragging themselves from one shop doorway to another to avoid the attention of the police.
The accompanying 11 track CD of the same title as the book is characterised by Tom’s energetic & lively fiddle playing. It’s the kind of English dance music he so enjoys playing while busking, or with his ceilidh bands. He is accompanied by Marit Falt on Nordic mandola and cittern and also by Jude Rees on English Border Bagpipes. The album is infectiously foot tapping, being the kind of music that can grab the attention of those passing by in the street and includes a selection of traditional tunes as well as some written by Tom and other collaborators. It was recorded in an old Methodist chapel in the Peak District, which gives it a very distinctive bright and live feel.
Graham Smout
Book: Seasons of Change. Busking England .Tom Kitching. Scratching Shed Publishing Ltd. £13.99 +p&p
CD: Seasons of Change.Tom Kitching. Taking Cat Recordings £12.00 + p&p
Available at: www.tomkitching.co.uk
June 8, 2020
There's a proud history of 'state of the nation' books, in which the author tours the country trying to catch the flavour of each area in turn. J B Priestley's English Journey, for one; Paul Theroux's Kingdom by the Sea for another. Tom Kitching's book belongs on the same shelf, both for content and for how successfully it's delivered.
He wanted to know England better, to probe below the surface, so spent a year busking with his fiddle, visiting about 50 separate locations in the process. It's a thoughtful, subtle portrait of England just before Brexit (a subject mentioned only once) - frequently funny, sometimes heartfelt. (And there's a splendid, parallel, CD of the music he plays, the other part of the project.)
Deliberately, at the end, he draws no conclusions; but he does observe that England's now a patchwork nation of contrasts: post-industrial north; picture-postcard Cotswolds; gleaming impersonal cities. Some towns are insular, unwelcoming, almost fossilised; others vibrant, welcoming and colourful. And the one over-riding issue is that the various parts do not know, and therefore fail to understand, each other.
An important, illuminating snapshot, deserving a wide and thoughtful readership - especially among those who make high-level policy decisions without, perhaps, understanding the country they're leading as well as they ought to do.
He wanted to know England better, to probe below the surface, so spent a year busking with his fiddle, visiting about 50 separate locations in the process. It's a thoughtful, subtle portrait of England just before Brexit (a subject mentioned only once) - frequently funny, sometimes heartfelt. (And there's a splendid, parallel, CD of the music he plays, the other part of the project.)
Deliberately, at the end, he draws no conclusions; but he does observe that England's now a patchwork nation of contrasts: post-industrial north; picture-postcard Cotswolds; gleaming impersonal cities. Some towns are insular, unwelcoming, almost fossilised; others vibrant, welcoming and colourful. And the one over-riding issue is that the various parts do not know, and therefore fail to understand, each other.
An important, illuminating snapshot, deserving a wide and thoughtful readership - especially among those who make high-level policy decisions without, perhaps, understanding the country they're leading as well as they ought to do.
February 18, 2025
I wasn't expecting this book to interest me but was pleased to discover it is well written and evocative of the streets Kitching busks in. I also like his pragmatism and wry sense of humour, however it didn't hang together well as a book-length read. The constant shifts like from Braintree to West Brom, and Dudley to Stourbridge (where ARE those two places?), and Loughborough to Carlisle plunging in without anything to orientate the reader and with no journey before arrival in a new place started to become waring for me and I didn't finish the book. I could see though how well this would work as a blog. And perhaps also if I'd been more musical.
The last chapter, where I expected wise musings on what it is to be English, was underwhelming, especially as Kitching seems to conclude that we are a disparate lot who aren't really one nation at all.
Great for dipping into on train journeys perhaps though.
Finally the book has an oddly self-published look to it, with over-long bio, blurb and with margins that make it all look a bit crammed in, which is a pity.
The last chapter, where I expected wise musings on what it is to be English, was underwhelming, especially as Kitching seems to conclude that we are a disparate lot who aren't really one nation at all.
Great for dipping into on train journeys perhaps though.
Finally the book has an oddly self-published look to it, with over-long bio, blurb and with margins that make it all look a bit crammed in, which is a pity.
April 10, 2020
During this enforced confinement ithas been great to be taken around large parts of England by Tom Kitching. I agrre with him that busking and music does allow people to talk with a bit more openness. It is a bittersweet experience. I was also able to enjoy Tom's fiddle playing with the accompanying CD while reading. So, I've got some places to visit when the gates are open again.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews